I just got back from Kublacon about four hours ago, and I’m somewhere between hyperactive and dead.

KublaCon is consistently been a good Convention for me – even last year, when their game shuffler program fucked everything up, I still had fun.

This year has been no exception.

Friday
Cil and I got there much later than intended. We had some errands to run, went to see “PotC3″ before the movie, and in general just took our sweet time getting there. Once there, I trolled the dealers room, got into our hotel room, ran into Mike (our normal roommate buddy), and then decided that I really didn’t feel like playing in a game that night – since I had a little work left to do on my own games.

Picked up my two new RPGs for the Con – “Shadows of Yesterday” (which has mechanics I’ve wanted to look at for a while), and a fairy tale game I can’t remember the name of that Mike actually paid for. Also, ran into the author of a game called Fantasy Imperium, which has received one of the WORST RPG reviews I’ve ever read (Read all about it here.) What made this bad is that I started talking to the guy, who pointed out the woman at his booth was a fitness model (which I don’t doubt, but really, if I want to look at hot women, I don’t need to talk to a game writer. Then, mid-way through the conversation, I realized who and what this guy was, and had to bite back HOLY SHIT, I’VE READ ABOUT YOUR GAME. MAN, I HEARD IT SUCKS. AND I THINK YOUR EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT IS LACKING!!! So in a rare rude move on my part, I just walked away.

Finished the work on my two games (two four hour games, rather than one 8 hour game), and fell asleep.

Oh, before that I checked in on Sean’s Prime Time Adventures game, based on Office Space. It looked fun, like the dream group had gathered to play it. I kinda wish I was in that game. But I needed the rest and the time.

Saturday
Saturday I was in serendipity land. Got to my first even ten minutes early, had all the players show up, and ran Cat. The game: “In Space, No One Can Hear You Yowl.” Basically six cats on the Nostromo during Alien, with a slightly different take on the monsters. (The cats could see them, the humans couldn’t, and somehow the Android could.)

I wasn’t happy with this game – not my best stuff. I was off.

And I had an. . . interesting . . . problem player. I’ll get to her in a bit, because this eventually becomes relevant.

The players said they had fun. I hope so. Me, I enjoyed it, but really it wasn’t my best work.

Cil and I went out to lunch/dinner at Max’s, after I went back into the Dealer’s Room to buy a game for Cil called “High School Drama,” and to pick up more dice (for Cil, myself, and Jenn. Now if I can just remember where I put them . . . (JW gave me money for the dice.) Oh, and after I signed up for games.

Kublacon is cool because they have a computerized sign up system. And because I was on the serendipity freeway all day Saturday, I walked from my game to the computers, signed up in five minutes, walked into the dealer’s room, made my two purchases, and then headed out to dinner, with all things told only 15 minutes passing.

I got into Rasilind’s Godlike game, set in the Mystery Men world. And I got to play the Bowler. Me? Playing a sarcastic person with a violent bowling ball? Hell yeah.

The game was fun, but near the end I started to fade. I had to tell her the next day that I had fun, and it was just exhaustion that made me seem cranky.

Sunday
I got into Greg’s L5R game, and played a character I had written up three years ago – Shosuro Hiroko, Scorpion Shugenja and Courtier. And I tried my best to get along with everyone. I tried to show my respect to my fellow samurai, and whenever dealing with those who could have us killed, I held my tongue.

But . . . well, remember the problem player?

I can describe her as the most overly-sensitive, overly-defensive player I’ve ever encountered. Ever. EVER. She was so bad she started to kind of tick off one of the mellowest players I’ve known – he was trying to make peace, and she didn’t just blur the line between OOC and IC, but she redrew it whenever she needed to explain why she was being bitchy. Her attitude turned off at least one other player, making the game less fun than it could have been. (Don’t get me wrong – the game was fun. But she removed some of the potential.)

She pulled the same crap the day before in my Cat game, but when you are only running for four hours, it’s hard for one player to seriously damage the game.

She and I have a mutual friend. I’m considering asking that friend if perhaps she was coming off of some psychoactive medication or something. (I have a long rant to do about player sensitivity. Someone remind me to do this.)

That aside, I had fun in the game. I played a Scorpion – the Clan that must have been designed for me in the first place. I’m sure that frustrated her – the Crane players got me. The Dragon players got me. So really, I’m not that annoyed.

Then . . . then came what I can only describe as the unexpected highlight of my con.

See, I was running “Faerys’ Tale” – (info here) – and after a slightly slow start (players having to get used to a really free and open game system) things got to be fun. Players were thinking of imaginitive uses of their abilities, dealing with fairy tale tropes, all that, when I looked and saw this guy watching the game, but it seemed like he didn’t want to be seen at first.

Then, he stepped forward to say hello.

It was the guy who wrote the game, Patrick Sweeney.

He had seen in the program a Faery’s Tale game that wasn’t being run by him, and decided to stop by.

But, the COOLEST part, was that he gave us a free copy of his game and some ‘essence beads,’ as a prize for the game. Which was REALLY COOL of him. (We got him to autograph it as well.)

He was a really, really nice guy.

It’s the first time a game company or person has given me swag to give away at my game. Granted, I’ve never asked for it, but this was just really cool.

That made my con. The players were all smiles for 2 1/2 hours (starting BEFORE Patrick Sweeney’s appearance), and that game I don’t doubt people had fun. Big smiles on all the players, lots of nice words, and when I did the ‘vote for your two favorite players’ at the end (since I had a LOT of stuff to give away now), every player got at LEAST one vote. One player received a vote from everyone EXCEPT himself, so that was fairly unanimous. One player received two votes. And everyone else got at least one. That’s a good group.

After that, I hung out with Kevan for about four hours, catching up with him (I haven’t seen him since . . . September?) and then Cil and I came home.

This Con rocked.

For me, at least.

Now, on to GoCon in June, and then ConQuest in September. The last one is the heart-breaker Con.

But I’m gonna persevere. Because this was the re-energizing Con I needed to get me focused again.

To everyone who was there – it was great seeing all of you. To those who weren’t – we kinda missed you.

See you all around.

Rich

(PS – GoCon - unkyrich runs the Buffyverse using BESM. ConQuest - I run . . . well, I’ll talk more about these later.)